Hotline After Dark -- Still Cleaning Up His Mess
Joe Biden played "Hardball" last night:
On his "clean" statement: "I wasn't making a historical statement. I was trying to compliment a colleague."
On Obama saying there have been articulate African-American candidates before: "Well he's right -- I campaigned with those articulate candidates."
More: "What I really regret here is that this sort of takes everything I was saying in that article about the war in Iraq and everything I was talking about what we need to do to get out of that war, and it just sort of, it moved it. And I also regret that there are people out there who would think that I was making a statement about the past. I was complimenting one of my colleagues, who by the way, he's like a meteor. There's not a single politician in either party who wouldn't like to be positioned where he is at this point."
Biden: "I think I'm going to be judged by a different standard and I deserve to be judged by a different standard because I say what I think. I sometimes say things inartfully."
More: "You know my state. My state, I think, has the eighth largest black population in America."
On if he's a "prisoner" of Capital Hill: "It's obvious that I'm not talking in the Senate language. I'd be a lot better off if I said I liked my distinguished colleague from Illinois" (MSNBC, 2/1).
HAIR RAISING ISSUES
And Mike Huckabee was on "On the Record":
On Mitt Romney: "He's got better hair than I do."
On the differences between him and Brownback: "I think there it's a matter of Senate versus executive experience. Senator Brownback and I would be very much kindred spirits in terms of many of the social issues. I don't know that we have a big disagreement there. So, it would primarily be in terms of experience and what we would bring to an executive branch job" (FNC, 2/1).
McCAIN GETS TOUGH
PBS' Suarez, on the Gen. Casey hearings: "Republican senators dominated the proceedings with their concerns about the president's troop increase plan and their attacks on Casey for the deteriorating situation in Iraq. Among the chief critics was Arizona Republican John McCain, a supporter of the president's troop buildup" ("NewsHour," 2/1).
CNN's McIntyre: "The case against Casey was laid out in prosecutorial style by maverick Republican John McCain, who slammed the outgoing Iraq commander's past rosy predictions and his reluctance to call for reinforcements while Iraq descended into chaos" ("Lou Dobbs Tonight," 2/1).
NOTHING LIKE POWER...
Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), on Dems controlling Congress: "I've been invited to the White House much more than I was in the past year" ("Hardball," MSNBC, 2/1).
AND FINALLY
MSNBC's Shuster: "The testimony late today was dramatic, and it was all about Vice President Cheney. An FBI witness was on the stand, and brought in evidence showing that Scooter Libby and Vice President Cheney may have discussed with each other leaking Valerie Wilson's identity to reporters as a way of undercutting administration critic Joe Wilson" ("Hardball," 2/1).
[EMILY GOODIN]